satisfactorily settled between the owners and the miners themselves, by districts, and without any attempt at a national agreement.

Where Labour disputes and unrest are concerned, the country does not want temporary or emergency measures. It desires permanent and effective legislation, to place trade unions on a basis of equality with other sections of the community, and to bring all political firebrands and revolutionaries within the arm of the law. Responsible and law-abiding citizens have been patiently waiting nearly two years for the Government to introduce suitable legislation of this character, and they feel that it would have been an easy matter to have done this immediately after the elections, when the country expected it. To-day vehement opposition may be anticipated from the Labour Party, but the Government should not be deterred by that fact. Mr Baldwin must realise by this time that Labour cannot be fought with the gloves on, and that friendly overtures and concessions are only regarded as signs of weakness. He can, however, rely on the staunch support of all Conservatives, not only in Parliament but throughout the country, for it is generally realised to-day that without definite legislation to prevent fanatical idealists and revolutionaries from poisoning the minds of children and callow youths, not even the return of indus

trial prosperity will arrest the growth of Communism.

The object of this article, as its title indicated, is to put forward a considered opinion regarding the future prospects of British industry under the conditions which we believe must inevitably arise, and towards which we are already drifting. To do this accurately, it has been necessary first to consider the deplorable state into which most of our staple industries have fallen, and the circumstances which have brought about that condition.

We propose now to turn to the more agreeable task of considering the mandate which the Government received from the country to carry out measures for safeguarding home industries, for developing Imperial Preference, and means for Empire settlement. It is in these directions that the only true and lasting solution of our national difficulties will be found.

Facts to which we have already referred indicate that the Government has not entirely ignored this mandate, and we have quoted figures to show how the small measures of Imperial Preference and Protection which they have added to the Statutes have already reacted favourably on our balance of trade. What has been done hitherto, however, falls very short of Joseph Chamberlain's ideals. His contention was that a genuine balance of trade could only be maintained when we purchased all imported foodstuffs within the Empire.

It is not our intention to overload this article with statistics in support of Mr Chamberlain's views. These are obtainable from many sources, one of the most interesting being a book, first published about two years ago, entitled 'The Kangaroo Keeps on Talking,' by L. St Clare Grondona, with an introduction by Mr Baldwin. The author deals in a readable and attractive way with the economic facts of Empire Preference in relation to the vexed question of foodstuffs, and quotes figures, chiefly in relation to Australia, which ought to remove most of the misconceptions that have hitherto obscured the vision of many people on this vital matter. In a more recent publication by V. A. Malcolmson, entitled 'National Existence or Starvation,' and issued by the Empire Industries Association, attention is specially drawn to the present position of this country in the matter of its own food production. It is stated by the author that we have now to pay annually about 500 millions for foodstuffs imported from overseas, and we can only provide that sum by selling other goods to the nations of the world. We have already pointed out that in actual commercial exchange last year we had to find 400 millions more than we realised by the sale of goods abroad, the adverse balance being made up from the sources known as

formerly available from these "invisible exports" for investment abroad-which was once our reserve fund for contingencies-had shrunk almost to vanishing point. The solution of our difficulties, according to Mr Malcolmson, Mr Grondona, and a host of other authorities who have made a special study of the problem, is co-operation with our overseas Dominions and Colonies on the basis of an Empire policy of food supplies, as originally proposed by Mr Chamberlain. This policy does not involve any curtailment of our home food production. On the contrary, it aims at building up a skilled and robust agricultural community in the Mother Country, and the war came as a timely reminder of this necessity. In 1914, we were only growing every year enough wheat to keep us for sixty days. To meet the desperate emergency of the war the amount was, with great difficulty, increased, until in 1918 we were producing enough wheat to keep us for one hundred days, and now the amount is back once again to a supply for sixty days. Such is the way we have taken to heart one of the most vital lessons of the war!

There are very few authorities who contend that it is an economical proposition for this country to attempt to produce all its own bread and meat supplies. Such a policy might secure us against starvation in the event of another great war, but even if it were pos

sible, it would take years to accomplish.

Mr Malcolmson's view is that it would suffice to aim at a home production of one-third of our total food requirements. That was the position to which we had practically attained in 1918, and it ought never to have been lost. It means that if by encouraging Empire settlement, the population of the Mother Country can be maintained at about its present level, we should have to import annually food supplies to the value of about 400 millions, and the policy proposed, of which the broad outlines appear to have been already laid down at previous Imperial Conferences, is that the whole of this amount should be expended in the markets of the Empire in return for the purchase from us of our own manufactures. The prices for wheat and meat within the Empire and the conditions necessary to exclude, or limit, foreign supplies would periodically be adjusted at each Imperial Conference Conference with the object of stabilising the market. Mr Grondona quotes facts and figures to prove that, by thus obtaining our supplies from Imperial sources, outside the influence of foreign marketing organisations, the cost of foodstuffs to the British consumer would actually be reduced, in which case it would not be unreasonable to employ any saving thus effected to build up our own cruelly depleted agricultural products. Even if this involved a small import

duty on certain Empire supplies, so long as the British consumer paid no more for his food than he does at present, the most bigoted of free-fooders would find himself devoid of arguments against Imperial Preference. On the other hand, if the Empire supply policy did involve a slight increase in the cost of certain food essentials, his arguments would not hold water against the enormous advantages which would result from the adoption of that policy. It would secure a permanent and rapidly developing market within the Empire for British manufactures, and it is surely infinitely better for our workpeople to find regular employment at good wages, even if food costs a little more, than to exist on the dole as an annual charge on the community. Then, by agreeing to buy our food supplies within the Empire, we shall do more, at one stroke, to consolidate that wonderful commonwealth of nations than all the platitudes regarding the bonds of kinship in which our politicians have indulged during the last twenty years. Furthermore, with a free interchange of commodities within the Empire, each Dominion will be more disposed to develop its natural resources, and thus provide suitable employment for British emigrants, than to strive for autonomy by establishing industries which already exist, and can be more economically conducted, other parts of the Empire. In our principal dominions there

in

perience, and would no doubt be endorsed by the present holder of that office, whose privilege it may yet be to carry through the policy which Mr Chamberlain so ably advocated. There is every reason at any rate to believe that Mr Amery is imbued with the same spirit. Writing to the Times' in 1924, strongly condemning the late Government's action in withdrawing the M'Kenna Duties, our present Colonial Secretary concluded his letter as follows:

tion of our workers to national ruin, and the dissolution of the Empire; the other leads to prosperity, strength, and greatness beyond anything that the world has yet seen or dreamed of. How long are we to fumble and hesitate before we have the courage to take up again a great policy in the spirit of the great leader who first proclaimed it?

We do not think we can close this article on a better note than these stirring words of our present Colonial Secretary. We have reached the parting of the ways, and if the Government will pursue the road indicated by Mr Amery, which leads to National and Imperial development, we are confident that they can count on the sympathy and support of the vast majority of their country